


It Only Got Worse on Earth

by Bibliotecaria_D



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 16:35:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D/pseuds/Bibliotecaria_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It only got worse on Earth, but it all started on Cybertron...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Title:** It Only Got Worse on Earth  
**Warning:** Making up a background, and dancing.  
**Rating:** PG-13 (for implications?)  
**Continuity:** IDW/G1  
**Characters:** Soundwave, Ratbat, Starscream, Megatron  
**Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors.  
**Motivation (Prompt):** A hilariously sexy dancing Soundwave YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck2yEE_ycWc) and a series of GIFs made by Gutterspook (http://gutterspook.tumblr.com/post/63629034628/sasswave-gifs-for-yall-source) led to a speculations about just how Soundwave came to be dancing like that. And then TwistyRocks wanted me to write it.

 **[* * * * *]**  
**It only got worse on Earth, but it all started on Cybertron…**  
**[* * * * *]**

 

To make this perfectly clear at the beginning, Soundwave had no hand in how it started. Back before the war began, back when he was fresh off the assembly line and still assimilating all the data downloaded into him as the brand new assistant to the Senator’s office, Soundwave kept his head down and did his job. He did it well. Nobody had any cause to look at him with disapproval.

However, they did have quite a few causes to give him an approving once-over. The thing with custom-builds -- which the Functionalist Party disliked in principle and used quite a lot anyway -- was that they weren’t just custom altmodes and picked programming. When a rich enough mech put in an order at the factory, the new-build was custom designed from the struts out. Soundwave’s altmode pre-determined some of how he looked in rootmode, but he was put together with an optic for more than merely functional purposes.

Senator Ratbat’s aide had met him at the door to the Senator’s personal complex, and he’d dropped his typical air of aloof pomposity to stare the minute Soundwave emerged from the crowd. He’d been told to expect a blocky blue communication specialist new-build. New-builds usually moved in tentative spurts, sticking to the sides of streets as they double-checked directions and gave way to everyone else in order to watch how other Cybertronians moved, how they acted, what they did. The first few days out of the factory, a new-build established a baseline of ‘normal’ based on what they saw around them. It was why each frametype had a stereotype attached to them: they all tended to act the same because streamlining delivery from factory to assigned function meant there was no variation. Assigning functions at activation ensured that they set the same baseline for behavior and environment by default exposure to the same things. 

A communication new-build should have been immersed in Cybertronian media upon activation, this one more than most. Due to a scheduling mix-up, Soundwave’s orientation appointment had been pushed back a week, but he’d been supplied an apartment, a vidscreen, a console, and a cable hook-up to the datanet. After a week of uninterrupted media access, the aide expected a loud, boisterous mech prone to speaking gestures and twice as attentive to his surroundings as anyone else. That was not what he got.

Soundwave didn’t so much emerge from the crowd as part it with his hips. Whoever had designed him had aimed for hot as the smelter and suggestive as a porn video, because while the altmode had been pre-ordered, the placement of those buttons certainly hadn’t been. The translucent flat plane of his Cassette dock gave gleaming hints of internal components held tantalizingly just out of sight, movement visible in joint-tightening shadows behind the glass. Unlike a standard communication worker, Soundwave’s helm had no blunt projections protecting his comm. array, and his face wasn’t the highly expressive, mobile tool of his trade the aide had been expecting. Instead, sharp angles rose above a smooth mask and visor that only looked sleeker for the broad, boxy lines of his body.

And he _moved_. New-builds kept still in the background, layering observations on top of their personality components and fitting in the pre-programmed elements of their functions before starting to really fit into crowds. Soundwave didn’t quite have the confidence to stride down the center of the street yet, but the way he walked held assurance that the sidewalk would clear before him. Watching him come at them, mechs did exactly that. Their optics locked on the side-to-side pop of buttons in a suggestive location, the scandalous nearly-clear glass of his chest. Soundwave looked like sin incarnate. He moved like he knew it.

The aide hadn’t been told to expect, but he’d had a general idea. This hadn’t been on anyone’s agenda. “Er…Soundwave?” he squeaked when the tall, broad mech stopped in front of the complex gate. The only reason he got the bearings to ask was because the mech finally acted like a new-build by checking the address and glancing around uncertainly. 

That visor found him in the crowd, recognized his emblazoned shoulder decoration for the status marker it was, and locked on him with a frankly sultry look. Okay, suddenly the aide’s preferences for smiling partners had been replaced by silent, smoldering mechs colored in twilight blue whose visors burned a perfect red iron crimson. “Correct. Soundwave: present and on time for employment orientation.”

A casual listener might be excused for mistaking that voice for a monotone, but it was too resonant for that. Like the blank mask, the level tones only drew attention to just how flawless the rest of the package was. Soundwave’s tonal shifts were slight but accented every precisely pronounced, exquisitely chosen word. The aide was going to glitch and swoon before the day was out.

The aide was a minor aide, pulling scutwork duty like running job orientations for the newbies. Right now he’d never been so glad for his lack of rank. “Right…right this way.” 

He knew he was treating the new guy with more deference than was seemly, but he could deal with that. He really could. Because Soundwave fell into step at his side like some kind of ornament that existed to make him look good for being there with those hips swaying beside him. A delivery mech stumbled over his own feet watching them walk by. The aide’s boss glanced out of the office door and did a double-take, and the aide smirked to himself, straightening up to stand tall and proud. That was right: _he_ had been chosen to show this beautiful hunk of shiny new aft around. His supervisor could put that in his tank and burn it.

“And, ah, who is this?” his boss asked, scrambling to recover.

The aide gestured grandly in an _’Introduce Yourself, Gorgeous’_ wave, already smiling wickedly.

Soundwave turned, hips swaying from left-up, right-down, left-down like some choreographed dance move, and one hand rose to perch on an outthrust hip with the fingers just barely brushing an arrow button. That was just this side of public indecency. Primus save them if this mech couldn’t play the fine line of elegantly sexy and obscenely crude like a maestro. “Name: Soundwave. Hired to fill communication aide position.” Simmering red surveyed the supervisor from helm to waist as the mech was practically pulled to his feet by the power of those sparse movements. Soundwave didn’t so much observe him as take him apart, do things in the privacy of their minds, and put him back together again knowing he’d come out on top, name screamed as praise to the high heavens. Soundwave: superior. “Please state name and position.”

The aide hid a chuckle as his boss made an inarticulate _‘muh’_ noise. Dear Adaptus, if all the new-builds started coming out of the factories like this, his libido would be in overdrive every day.

Soundwave took to the position like he’d been made for it, which he had, so that worked out so well. It was a quiet position, mostly dealing with data, but he played an important part in Senator Ratbat’s media representation. Due to an abruptly missing coworker a couple weeks into the job, he also took over internal communication for the Senator’s central office and outlying operations. The Senator had his fingers turning a lot of gears through the city and elsewhere on Cybertron. Security, organization, and keeping up appearances on involvement -- or not appearing to be involved -- became Soundwave’s job.

He did the job, and he did it well. Operations went on without a hitch.

After his shift, he went back to his small apartment and stared out the window.

Someone had, between commissioning the factory and setting up where he would live, skimmed away some essential money. Soundwave had an apartment, and technically he had the vidscreen, console, and cable hook-up for the datanet. None of them hooked _up_ to anything, but he had them. He hadn’t known that they were supposed to be hooked up until a few months into working for the Senator, when he located the nearest access company and paid for the program and datanet access himself.

To be honest, he didn’t use them all that often. When he was home, just as when he’d first been let into the apartment, Soundwave glued himself to the window as soon as dark fell. Cybertron was currently passing through a fairly bright solar system, and nighttime down in the sublevels was dark as the Pit. Neon burst under the overpasses when the shadows got too dim to do business in. It was then that the illegal taxi-dance club across the street opened its doors.

Yeah, Soundwave didn’t move like a communication new-build. He moved like he’d learned to move, from watching out his window. Mechs from the upper levels tried not to be noticed as they slinked down the street to the open ground floor of the building opposite. They sat at the tables set out on the street and furtively paid for dances from anyone who didn’t make enough credits to scrape by in their Functionalist Party-decreed job. The dancers came from every area of life: the construction altmodes who passed crate lines between their legs and let it hiss as customers reeled them in; the dock workers who could lift whole tables while other dancers posed on top; the racers who didn’t win that day at the track, all sleek plating and weary optics, overheated and exhausted but still looking for enough shanix to fuel their high performance frames.

The music throbbed, deep and seductive, and joints bent as improbable frametypes gyrated without a single frag given for how they should be seen as sexy, how they were supposed to be the manual labor and background figures. Three stories up, Soundwave backed away from the window, arms raising as one shoulder rolled back, his wrists and knuckles flowed his hands through the air, and his body curved one way, then the other. His hips swayed to the beat, and he threw his head back, abandoning himself to the movement and the music. Senseless lyrics, but he felt them vibrating deep in his empty docks.

_Pull out, go in_  
Push me over and make me spin  
Take me to the height  
Take me to the height  
The height  
The height  
Tonight 

Whirling, one arm cracked out and in, and both hands flung out, fingers snapping at the apex. Knee out, he kicked, bent, and slapped his hands to the floor, and before the staccato sound died, he was standing back up with one knee cocked out, ready to go down when the music dipped. Below, the songs recycled as customers came in and a new shift of dancers started. Feet lightly crossing -- skip, step, tap-tap, _stomp_ \-- Soundwave spun back to the window and hid behind the frame, visor once again absorbing every move and making it his normal, making it the backdrop his growing experience life experience gradually filled in the blanks around.

_Take me to the height_  
The height  
The height  
Tonight 

The tiny janitorial frame with the sauciest legwork of the whole club was up on a table, and Soundwave zoomed in on him. This was exactly why he hadn’t noticed his datanet cable didn’t connect to anything for the first few months. The comm. mech dropped into a crouch, thighs spreading in close, conscious imitation. He had to crane his head to keep watching over the window sill, but he managed to keep his balance. Humming small _’tuh-TUM-tuh-tuh-TUM’_ s in time with the music, he let his head fall back and spread the fingers of one hand over his neck and mask before dragging it down the glass of his chest, the plating of his abdomen, and down further to rub a thumb over his control buttons as his thighs spread wide. It was a taunting, sensuously slow move. He had time to finish his version and scramble upright again to check out the window if he’d gotten it right.

Okay, good. He’d need to try it in front of a mirror, but if he could just add on the way the little dancer rose gracefully up, aft leading the way and back arching until hands dragged from knee to inner thigh and ending in a sharp smack against the wandering hands of --

Wasn’t that Senator Ratbat’s Head of Public Relations?

Soundwave stared. The song ended, and a new one began. The neon lights all shifted, flickering lurid colors over the illegal club. Taxi-dancing was just paying mechs to dance at tables, but the Functionalist Party condemned clubs like the one down below as encouraging mechs to defy the natural order of things. Construction altmodes and janitors weren’t supposed to be _dancers_. Racers should stick to racing.

_Hey you ran me down_  
Check my tag  
The coroner better write  
‘death by frag’  
Face to the wall  
DJ ‘face us all  
Face to the wall  
DJ ‘face me, ‘face us all~ 

Soundwave had never gone down to the ground floor to venture out into the street, sit at a table, or even watch from close-up. He liked the lights, the dancing, the movement and the confidence and the disdain in the dancers’ faces as customers beckoned them over. He simply knew better than to approach the club. It was no coincidence that clubs like this one had racy reputations. 

Reputations that could ruin a mech found dancing at one -- or found buying dances at one.

Strangely, Soundwave found himself promoted at work soon after that night. Perhaps it had something to do with a low-voiced conversation he’d had in passing at the office the day afterward. Prominent mechs would do a lot to keep their reputations intact. A lot.

Soundwave stayed at his window, watching. More often than not, now, he watched the customers instead of the dancers. Some of what he saw was worthless. Some of it was worth more in blackmail than a mere communication mech earned in a year. And when Soundwave ventured down to the ground floor finally, he brought some of his new earnings to spread about rather generously, staying in the shadows and making new friends. Nice friends. Friends who saw the way his hips moved and money passed over his palm, and they smiled at him the way they didn’t at their customers. They knew a fellow hustler when they saw him.

He found a new apartment, after word spread about who lived above the taxi-dance joint. The ready blackmail dried up, but the dancers still smiled at him. Even as they spread across the city, finding new places to dance, new customers to seduce, they smiled at him. They reported who they danced for, and he paid them, and they smiled.

It kept the blackmail coming. As long as Soundwave had his small underground network of informants, he could live comfortably. He could dance in his apartment by himself, arms up and hips thrusting at no one as the music blasted. 

_Hey you ran me down_  
Check my tag  
The coroner better write  
‘death by frag’ 

Not bad for a new-build communication mech in Senator Ratbat’s entourage. Soundwave would have felt somewhat proud of his achievements, but he didn’t really think it was anything other than normal. He learned better, eventually. It took some subtle inquiries, but it gradually sank in that not everyone in Ratbat’s personal complex engaged in cut-throat political drama habitually. Just most of them. This was, sadly, normal life for mechs in Soundwave’s job bracket.

He might have been content to stay in his (relatively) quiet job, silently extorting more than his pay from various prominent businessmechs and politicians in the city, but the Senate did rely on elections. Elections ran on fund-raisers. Fund-raising basically did everything possible to strip money from people in any way possible. While the pledges were typically repaid in flimsy promises the Senator had no intention of coming through on, some of his funders did require more than lipservice.

"It’s just a fundraiser," the Senator said at the home office peptalk when the campaign season started. Maybe his optics stared meaningfully at a certain blue frame in the crowd.

Perhaps he turned to give that same blue mech a direct look when the closed-door gala for some of his richest contributors came up. Soundwave refused to shift uncomfortably under that look, especially when the plans for the party were revealed. "A minute of a silly dance," the Senator assured everyone, optics glittering. “Something to entertain the contributors. Thinks of it as, oh, giving them something for their money.”

"All of my interns are participating," the Senator hinted, and his mouth turned up at one corner. “ **All** of them.” 

Hushed, nervous giggles swept the room, office flunkies and managers alike suddenly unable to meet each other’s optics. Except for Soundwave, because the composed, dignified mech who moved like liquid silk had been built according to specifications that still remained a mystery, but he looked blandly right back at the Senator. Reacting would only feed more fuel into the furnace. Dancing had ruined many high-placed mechs, but not the ones who stayed in the shadows. Soundwave knew his place, and it wasn’t sitting out in the open as a target. The Senator smirked at him, but doing what everyone else was required to do wouldn’t make him stand out at all.

That was the plan when he first stepped on the stage. Sure, a thousand hungry optics pressed on him, drinking in the sharp angles of his helm and translucent plane of his chest. The front ranks leaned closer, all but devouring him with their optics. A few of the contributors had already overindulged and were shouting suggestions for what he should dance to, but he’d come on the stage to do what half his department had done. A minute of the stiff little routine to an old anthem, and he would retreat backstage to resume spying on behaviors these rich mechs would rather not be spread outside the walls of this party.

Then the music started, and with all those optics pressing in on him, what choice did Soundwave have?

He never forgave Ratbat that.

Thousands of years later, however, it did provide a slick backdoor for meeting with a certain gladiator who wanted to lead a rebellion. “What happens when you get caught meeting with me?” Megatron asked, optics calculating under the concern in his voice.

The Senator would find a way to free him, or one of his many contacts would speak up in his defense, likely. “Alibi dependent on situation at time of exposure,” he chose to reply. 

Megatron, crude as he could be, couldn’t be judged by his mining background. There was a clever mind under the rough exterior. Soundwave still had to find a way to connect with the former low-caste mech, something beyond providing information and insight into the political maneuvering around them. Those made Soundwave a good ally, but not a close confident. Megatron needed a reason to connect with him. Something that brought the poised aide of Senator Ratbat down to the level of the streets.

The gladiator snorted skeptically and turned toward the diorama of Kaon he often brooded over. “Fine. Keep your mysteries. May they be of use to you when the door’s broken in and you’re clapped in statis cuffs with the rest of us.”

Soundwave studied the mech for a long moment. Megatron was taller, plating heavy and thick, and the scars he born went down to the very struts. Today he sat in a chair, nursing the aftershocks of a crushed knee from a match yesterday. He was a means to an end, but Soundwave...respected him in a way he never had the Senator he worked for.

He was worth risking a bit of reputation for.

The quiet comm. mech took a step forward and made a gesture more flair than anything else. “If caught, I may claim favors owed to anonymous benefactor traded hands. My presence: accounted for by employer.”

Megatron looked up, frowning, but the flat line of his mouth went slack when the stiff, upper-class political aide melted to the floor in a languid pour of loose joints and heated visor. Fingers delicately walked across the floor to brush along the inside of his foot, and a choked sound of shock escaped the gladiator when Soundwave followed it in a quick roll, one leg sweeping up and over. It turned Soundwave on his knees, back to the chair and hands sliding temptingly up the outside of his thighs, fingers fanning black over blue as they framed that aft and toyed in front, just out of sight. Buttons clicked in naughty counterpoint to the pulse of low music from his speakers.

Scandalized and more than a little turned on by the unexpected show, Megatron coughed the surprise from his throat. “I...take it that you’ve been sent out on this kind of ‘assignment’ before by your corrupt Senator.”

Soundwave arched back, dipping toward the floor in rhythmic waves, further and further between Megatron’s knees every time he went down. His hands continued up his sides and played about on his shoulders until, as if by accident, the eject button depressed with a loud _clack_. The glass of his chest popped open, just barely visible over his shoulders as he swayed back upright, and he chuckled when a startled rattle of feet on the floor told him Megatron had involuntarily jerked forward trying to see into his chest.

“Yes. Soundwave: versatile.” Hands crossed over his chest in an appearance of teasing modesty, he swiveled his hips and sank down to sit on his own foot, knees sliding over the floor and visor intentionally sultry as he peered up at the gladiator. “Past history now available to use for your cause, Megatron. Subterfuge is more than lies. The skill of deceit is in using the truth as well.”

The ex-miner and wanna-be rebel leader stared at him and swallowed hard. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”

That he did. Whenever Soundwave felt the gladiator -- his _leader_ \-- needed a reminder in the millions of years following that one night long ago, he found some music from clubs destroyed eons ago and played it. Slow and sweet or hot and fast, he took the rhythm and owned it, wherever and whenever. It was as much self-defense as a reminder. The Decepticon Cause had taken him from the shadows too far to cloak himself in dignified pretense that his history hadn’t happened. It was either buckle under it as a shame or flaunt it as a point of pride.

Well, if he had it, he could shake it. And call it a self-indulgent quirk to be one of the few Decepticons fully capable of surrendering to the beat no matter who stared. 

Besides, his sheer talent in dance and natural beauty only enhanced his position of power in the ranks. Nothing made him more untouchable than showing himself off and then brutally taking down anyone who dared mock him or tried to take liberties with him because of the show. 

Now, those who demonstrated proper appreciation were a different matter entirely.

Frenzy did a double-take as Soundwave passed him in the hall, and not because the navy blue mech’s legs were flashing in a snappy strut in time with an old tune. The Decepticons at Darkmount were used to seeing that. “Boss, hold up! You got a -- “ He pointed uncertainly at what looked like a sticky-tag on the Cassette carrier’s knee. “A thing. You got a thing on you.”

Soundwave peeled it off, read the flimsy’s note, and hummed to himself. “Notice: appreciated. Return to your duties, Frenzy.”

The Cassette stared after him. What had that been about?

It’d been about information, and networking. The stoic Decepticon Communication Officer might have chosen to spontaneously demonstrate a few moves more often for a certain mech after that, but he never said why. Following sticky-tags pressed to his armor as he danced expressed further appreciation of the pretty sight, admiration of his moves, and even requests for songs. These were also read and given equal consideration. Equal, that was, if the mechs who wrote the notes fulfilled their duties, succeeded in their missions, or surpassed expectations. A couple shanix or small gifts showered upon him in the halls when he got in the mood to throw in a shoulder shimmy or two while he walked? That certainly didn’t hurt.

Word got around that Soundwave wasn’t shy about rewarding his admirers for jobs well done. Besides, Decepticons knew about currying favor. As much as Megatron’s original Cause had been to build a meritocracy, time and power had warped the faction. Those Soundwave favored tended to do better than those he didn’t. Explicitly spelling out the network of secrets and favors owed would require digging it out into the open, and nobody doubted that Soundwave would destroy anyone who dared before the damage became noticeable. So notes and gifts could hint at what those who performed well wanted as rewards, and if he favored the mechs, they might get what they asked for. Some daring mechs even tried approaching him in a bid for a private show or two. 

That kind of attention was to be expected. Not so expected was the way Decepticons would drop any and everything they were doing to watch in wide-opticked, vent-gaping enjoyment. It amused Soundwave, he’d admit. Having power over armed, dangerous Decepticons made him mischievous, in his own way. He wanted to see how far he could push his manipulation.

The day he took it so far as to bump Starscream with a hip, everyone thought he’d pushed it too far.

Starscream’s helm turned, menacing in its slowness. He studied the officer who was, despite their original ranks back at the beginning of the war, now his subordinate. 

For a second, the slightly shorter officer suffered a spasm of doubt.

It passed. Oh, what the frag. 

Soundwave met his optics, threw his arms up, and popped his pelvic span in a deliberately provocative move that thrust his buttons forward. It was less of a challenge than a blatant proposition as his torso twisted around, head turning last to tear their gazes apart. He toss his helm back, pivoted on his heel, and pushed his hip out to the side to swing his aft back --

\-- and the side of his hip into Starscream’s hand as the Seeker grabbed onto the dare as if it were a strong headwind. “Oh?” the Air Commander teased, pulling him back until they rolled front-to-back, energy fields melding together as they moved from neck to knee in a long ripple of metal and smooth plating. “You think you can keep up with me? Tornados are my dance floor of choice, groundpounder.” His chest pushed forward, and Soundwave’s speakers boomed the chorus of song whose lyrics weren’t half as intimate as the two of them when he followed Starscream’s lead. 

“Dancing indoors. Advantage: mine.” 

“We’ll just see about that.”

Their legs spread, pale thighs fitting together, Soundwave’s between Starscream’s as he rose to the tips of his feet and pressed his aft flushed under Starscream’s cockpit. He leaned forward against the heavier Decepticon’s weight, relying on the fingers stroking his buttons to keep him balanced. Their circuitry fell into a low-grade sync, common systems stuttering until they picked up the same rhythm, and their energy fields throbbed around them in an expanding pool of erotic intent that would have stopped passing mechs in their tracks if the entire room hadn’t already frozen into a tableau of open-mouthed statues. Across the room, Megatron reset his optics rapidly, drew in a deep vent, and said not a word in protest.

By the time Starscream brought them back upright, one hand sliding up and the other down, the sounds of fans running on high could be heard over the music. Starscream’s fingertips drew patterns on Soundwave’s throat and scraped over a white thigh. Hands gripped in front of himself, Soundwave peered coyly over his shoulder at the Seeker and worked their thighs and hips together in a tight drop and figure-eight from side to side. Energy fields in perfect sync, they moved as one. The Seeker slid back, wings flexing up in a shamelessly luxurious stretch to a long note at the end of the song while his hands trailed around to stroke down his partner’s back. Soundwave’s hips moved just as lazily to one side, and the music hit one last quick series of loud beats. 

Starscream stepped sharply forward, whirling to put his back to Soundwave right as the beat seemed to _yank_ the boxy mech into him, and those blue hips snapped to the side and around to grind against bright red. One hand slapped back onto that red aft in a resounding smack, and then --

\-- and then they went their separate ways across the room as if nothing had happened.

“What…I…” Skywarp gaped at his wingleader, mouth moving but words failing to connect in his mind. 

Rumble had less of a problem, but he was more uneasy about confronting the mech who carried him around in his chest. “Uh, boss? What was that?”

Starscream and Soundwave looked at their respective teams. They glanced at each other. Both of them shook their heads in mutual exasperation at the lack of processing power on display.

“It’s called dancing, you nitwick,” Starscream said irritably. “You’ve seen it before. Get over it.” 

Soundwave didn’t bother acknowledging his Cassette’s hesitant question. He returned to work. Absolutely no reply was given to questions about the impromptu show. Starscream shot anyone who asked. When someone finally gathered the wits to look, Megatron didn’t appear to have even seen what his two top officers had just done. Background music from Soundwave wasn’t unusual, and even an innuendo-laden song crackling with electricity that’d been connected cables away from transmitting back and forth in public hadn’t seemed to shift the Supreme Commander’s attention from his work. 

Everyone else couldn’t drag their minds out of their interfacing equipment, and Megatron didn’t have a fan spinning? What did his fuel pump move through his tubes, liquid nitrogen?! 

He never reacted. Not then, and not later.

Not the time after that, either. Or the one after that.

Although if anyone had been able to keep from panting and cheering, they might have noticed that Megatron kept his Second and Third on increasingly short leashes. They were never far from his side as the war progressed. The Air Commander always returned to land beside him like a falcon returning to his handler. Soundwave stayed in the shadows at his shoulder, observant and ever-present. Call it prudence, distrust, or chain of command, but he kept them close. He stood ahead of and between them.

Megatron represented the Cause. He was the Decepticon Supreme Commander and living ideal. The optics of every Decepticon rested on him.

But if the spotlight shifted off their leader every once and a while, at least he had a good seat to watch the show. 

 

**[* * * * *]**

_[ **A/N:** It really did get worse on Earth. Turns out that Soundwave liked hip-hop music, and trapping Starscream in an underwater base meant that he had bucketloads of nervous energy to get rid of. _

_For TwistyRocks! Thank you! ^_^ **]**_


	2. Pt. 2

**Title:** It Only Got Worse on Earth, Pt. 2  
 **Warning:** Explaining crazy G1 Decepticons, dubcon, lapdancing.  
 **Rating:** PG-13 (for implications?)  
 **Continuity:** IDW/G1  
 **Characters:** Starscream, Megatron, Decepticons, Soundwave  
 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors, nor make a profit from the play.  
 **Motivation (Prompt):** A hilariously sexy dancing Soundwave YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck2yEE_ycWc) and a series of GIFs made by Gutterspook (http://gutterspook.tumblr.com/post/63629034628/sasswave-gifs-for-yall-source) led to a speculations about just how Soundwave came to be dancing like that. Plus a kinkmeme prompt, this round: http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/11776.html?thread=14436864#t14436864.

**[* * * * *]**   
**Part Two**   
**[* * * * *]**

It did get worse on Earth.

Everything did, but specifically Starscream. Starscream turned into an unholy terror. 

Close quarters under water, the peculiar insanity of Earth, even the bizarre twist the war had taken moving to this planet all fed into Megatron’s inability to handle Starscream’s trapped madness. The Air Commander had always been high-charge and high-strung, but the screeching fits bubbled over on Earth. He could _not_ deal with circumstances. A world of politics and violence as an outlet had narrowed to almost nothing. His aggression and ambition had nowhere to go, and he took it out on everyone. It was actually a relief when he seized on crazy-obvious backstabbing treason as a hobby. 

To be honest, the Decepticons on Earth were all suffering from a severe case of not quite knowing what to do. War on Cybertron had fallen into a pattern. Attacks were grand, hemisphere-encompassing efforts where entire cities burned to the ground and whole units disappeared under heavy fire. Casualties were numbers, not people. Troop movements that took half a vorn barely showed up on their factions’ respective tactical maps. Even the Autobots’ shift to guerilla tactics had been minor assaults peppering behind the front line between the big pushes.

This war on Earth had unsettled the pattern. Nothing fit. The Decepticons were stuck in a damp, gross base that had once been the ship that would return them to Cybertron in victory. Now it dripped a lot and required barnacle removal every couple of weeks. 

Plus, they had to stay in close proximity to each other. Safety in numbers, after all, and they were stuck on a world that didn’t seem threatening until Autobots popped out of nowhere to put a missile up somebody’s afterburner. Their species were robots in disguise, but the Autobots were disguised as vehicles the swarming fleshy creatures infesting this planet had everywhere, the fraggers.

The Decepticons on Earth didn’t do well in close proximity to each for long periods of time. There was no front line to deploy to when they got restless. There were a surplus of specialists, officers, and the soldiers that had made it to the Elite on fighting ability or bribes. The first two groups didn’t generally stay in a tiny base together at any time unless it was a strategic meeting at Darkmount, and Darkmount was huge, so it wasn’t really comparable. The latter group didn’t hang out with the former two in any sort of situation outside of receiving orders or reporting. 

Now everybody was stuck together in an underwater base, unable to escape each other or this filthy planet, and yeah. Yeah, they understood why Starscream felt it necessary to go stark raving bonkers and declare himself the Decepticon leader every time Megatron looked tired. And every Tuesday at two o’clock, apparently just for the fun of it. 

Regardless of his methods, the mech’s madness was reassuringly visible. He’d always been a treasonous snake. Nobody was surprised.

Megatron’s methods…whether it was madness or simple frustration, their Supreme Commander lashed out. That surprised most everyone. Starscream’s antics made him the target of that ire more often than not, but even a habit of pecking at Megatron’s temper in nitpicking comments couldn’t keep the Lord of the Decepticons focused on him and him alone. Starscream was an unholy terror, but Megatron was their leader. His rages were feared the way blasphemers feared a god’s vengeance.

Perhaps it was constant exposure to a crew that acted out frequently from boredom. Perhaps his patience shortened like a fuse clipped shorter by every Autobot victory on this wretched planet. Perhaps he’d always been a brutal tyrant, and the shifting of mechs in and out of his personal sphere had somehow diffused the overall impact of that brutality. Regardless of why, his temper smoldered, and his fists were prepared to follow through on the unfortunate mech who tripped it.

Starscream took the brunt, even seemed to relish pushing Megatron to the edge of murder, but the longer they stayed on Earth, the worse Megatron got. Although that was speculation. In reality, it was probable that the Decepticons’ behavior was the cause of their leader’s increased anger. Discipline deteriorated as rank began to matter less than favors and, as always, survival. Earth corroded more than their metal. 

The Air Commander’s rank remained secure, however. Even if he couldn’t outfly the lot of them, he schemed through the politics of the base so slickly he had most of the Decepticons dangling by puppet strings. Physical power was a secondary force, for his needs. It wasn’t his presence on the battlefield that had Decepticons catering to his whims. More often than not, mechs slipped in and out of his office to keep him on their side. To keep him happy. A happy Starscream would be willing to pull one of his wild stunts or call out a bitingly accurate observation before one of the other Decepticons got slagged by Megatron. 

An unhappy Starscream might not strike out directly at a single Decepticon or betray his faction, but he would set out to destroy Earth and the mechs trapped on it out of sheer, screaming _spite_. That hadn’t been a good week. 

Megatron had beaten him half to deactivation. The other Decepticons had rained abuse on his head until he’d looked up at them, broken and fallen, and smiled. There had been something about that look, something that had stopped hardened killers in their tracks, and then he’d laughed. High, hysterically amused, and painfully sane, he’d laughed at their expense.

It’d been the sanity that punched through that this mech might not be as competent as he thought he was, but he could and almost had murdered them. He was the Second-in-Command of their faction, the mech who could hold Megatron’s rapt attention by the flick of a wing, and his fickle favor could ruin or rule them. The lower Decepticon hierarchy had buckled into anarchy here on Earth, but the upper ranks remained. He stood between their leader and them like an overseer in the Pit. He would choose who would be plucked from the seething masses for his master -- or who would be rejected to melt away into the slurry of cannon fodder sacrificed to war.

The situation wasn’t so dire for the officers. They had direct access to Megatron, at least here on Earth. It was the specialists and the soldiers who’d realized it was their afts on the line. They’d picked up the Air Commander and labored to repair him, because the consequences of his displeasure couldn’t get any clearer than looking Death straight in the optics. 

The supplies for Starscream’s repairs had mysteriously shown up despite Megatron’s orders to the contrary. The officers had looked the other way, uncomfortably acknowledging that the Air Commander outranked them and they might have been neglecting that fact. The consequences fell on their heads, too, even if not as directly.

It had been the most effusive non-apology ever made.

Because when the Decepticons got on Megatron’s bad side, mechs ended up in the repairbay or worse, left where they’d gone down. Only allies in high places could save somebody’s neck when the Supreme Commander stood on it. Such allies greased the gears that moved the faction along, easing the bureaucratic process Megatron disdained. He gave his commands and they were followed, but the everyday functions of the Decepticon ranks went on beneath his notice. That realm belonged to his officers, and there was no officer above Second. If a Decepticon wanted to survive, if he wanted to _prosper_ , there was no ally higher than Starscream.

Keep the Second-in-Command happy, and he kept them sheltered under his wings. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Starscream knelt to Megatron, tyrant of the firmament. Everyone else knelt beside him, but they knelt to the prince of the skies as well. Everyone chipped in to keep the system running smoothly.

So it wasn’t unusual to have Hook step away from an incomplete repair job and dismiss the patient until later, visor intent on a whatever damage the Air Commander had taken. No matter the damage, the mech got priority treatment. Best to keep Starscream well aware of the Constructicons’ value, lest their project budgets somehow become lost passing over his desk.

The patients might complain, but not above a grumble. The smarter ones gave up their slots on the repair queue to slip out of the repairbay when Starscream left, hoping to follow him to a washrack and offer to assist in any way he saw fit. Going beyond a good scrubbing wasn’t uncommon. Any complaints about polish and detailing for the Air Commander were kept to furtive whispers in the barracks, and nobody shared secret techniques. Keeping a few tricks up the manifold could be the difference between Starscream’s favor or a cold shoulder for a mech in need. He had no problem ignoring Decepticons he didn’t like. 

The Coneheads spent a miserable month sucking up to him after finding that out the hard way. Amazing the difference one spectacularly-fumbled mission could make in their attitude toward Starscream, but Megatron had been unforgiving. His orders removed them from the ration roster. Since their leader’s fusion cannon whined warning anytime they were seen near him, the only options they had were starvation -- or Starscream. Every mech had a stash of energon cached away in case something happened, but it couldn’t last. The other Decepticons could almost hear their pride give a dying squeal. 

Ramjet’s rivalry with Starscream simmered hostility between the two lead trines. Crawling to the Air Commander for help would mean conceding his superiority and swallowing the bitter defeat with every mouthful of fuel he allotted them. But nobody else dared approach the Lord of the Decepticons to sneer at him about how depriving half the air support on Earth was completely stupid. Nobody else would survive that conversation. Thundercracker snorted and walked away when Ramjet sidled over to wheedle his help, and Skywarp laughed in his face. 

Ramjet tried to hold out, but his trinemates surrendered. Dirge was seen discreetly stopping beside Starscream’s seat on the bridge by the end of first week, leaning down to murmur words that twisted the Air Commander’s lips in a vicious smirk. Thrust didn’t hold out much longer. By the time Ramjet finally buckled and gave in, Starscream had been using the two Coneheads as his personal toys long enough that some of the other Decepticons were scrambling to think of alternate means to pay tribute, since he didn’t need anyone else to attend to his needs.

Everyone had their ways. Onslaught sent Swindle on the good days, the days Starscream wanted amusement in the form of expensive toys and a nimble tongue. Vortex was gift-wrapped for the bad days, deposited outside his door wearing statis cuffs on his wrists and a shockwhip tethered to a chain around his neck, visor resigned if not exactly eager. Astrotrain and Blitzwing tended to double-team Starscream, showing up still smoking from fusion cannon blasts and dented from Megatron’s fists. They left hours later smelling of jet fuel and dispersed charge, Starscream still a warm taste on their lips and tingling against their fingertips, and Megatron’s ire would evaporate sometime before they were next summoned to their leader’s presence. Motormaster’s team became known for their oddball hobbies: they were connoisseurs of vintage high grade, collectors of pornographic material within very specific interests, and extremely skilled at using their smaller fingers and more flexible joints in unconventional ways.

No one, not even the Coneheads, bothered to approach Soundwave for help. Megatron’s will was Soundwave’s law. He might be bribed to look the other way, but only if he wished to use it as blackmail later, and putting himself in harm’s way to distract Megatron? That wouldn’t happen.

The law punished those who broke it equally. There were times when Soundwave himself wished to evade Megatron’s will. Not defy; never defy. Subtly deflect his leader’s anger away from a Cassette, or draw attention away from an indiscretion of his own, but never openly defy the Lord of the Decepticons.

Those were the times that the bridge hushed, the mechs on duty gone silent late in the night shift. Starscream lounged in the command chair as he always did when Megatron wasn’t there to throw him out of it, lazy and sharp-edged at the same time. The Supreme Commander was far away, of course, either in recharge or otherwise occupied, or the dark navy mech in the doorway wouldn’t risk this. 

Everyone was aware he was there, but no one looked at him. That was left to the Air Commander, who slowly turned his helm to regard Soundwave through optics dimmed to deep ruby. They held more cruelty than amusement, but passion was passion. Soundwave could work with it whatever its form. 

Work with it, he did. The music of Earth was different than Cybertron, the notes more rounded and the beats fuller. Humans factored in the imperfection of living hands playing the instruments, the slight dull sound of fingers on piano keys instead of the sharp, crisp perfection Cybertronian music tended toward. It made the music richer in a resonant way, the layers of sound weaving together until only a discerning audio could pull the smudging notes apart, but it was so beautifully simple compared to the thousands of layers that made up common Cybertronian music. The club music of Cybertron sounded like pretentious music halls resounding with orchestras compared to even the most complicated scores on Earth. 

The music of Earth was primitive, primal, and exotically organic. It called to the fuel pump and the charge instead of the mind.

The music Soundwave chose for these times throbbed, calling and coaxing. It pulsed from his speakers low enough to pass for a storm whipping the waves up overhead. It was a pressure as much as it was a sound. It was a soundtrack for seduction.

The Decepticons on the bridge shivered but pretended they saw nothing as the Third-in-Command of the Empire swayed across the room toward the Seeker watching him. Maybe later, their dreams included the liquid way navy hips moved, or the curl of a single blue finger beckoning Soundwave closer. They didn’t look, but they all saw how Soundwave twirled and dropped to the floor in a luxurious crouch, sinking down as if he had all the time in the world. One leg slid out straight to the side and the other, as if by accident, bent between Starscream’s legs so that the Cassette carrier’s knee just barely brushed down the side of one thruster.

The music thrummed, and the beat rolled Soundwave’s helm back as his chest thrust forward, counter-circles emphasized by the slow glide of fingers under his tapedesk. Starscream settled back in the command chair, watching, while the bridge crew held their fans in check, straining to see from the corners of optics and visors. Fingertips skreeled gently along the bottom edge, dragging down to tease seams and fan out lower down, black over blue. Soundwave’s vents caught, and his chest pushed out right before he arched back in an achingly erotic mimicry of another dance, a suggestion of different beat. Black hands framed navy hips for a moment, and then they walked up to drag thumbs along the edges of translucent glass that hinted at what lay underneath. The fingers of one hand paused to play with the eject button, but the other rose to caress neck cables in brazen invitation.

Starscream cocked his head to the side. Soundwave’s hands reached for him next, palms running up over the knee to slide up white thighs, thumbs rubbing little circles in time with the slow thrust and retreat of his chest as he danced languidly to music that could be felt in the crackle of a mech’s power plant. When he rose to follow his hands, he leaned into Starscream’s chest with a contact so light the glass of their chests merely clinked. The plush buzz of Soundwave’s EM field rippled over Starscream in a wave, however, a heavy vibration that coyly offered what the glittering red visor promised. It washed back as his hands found the arm rests to support his weight. 

Now crouched on both feet, half his weight taken by his arms, Soundwave writhed between the Air Commander’s knees in a serpentine twist that rose and fell, knees pressed tight and hips making obscenely fluid figure-eights in time with the rhythm set by that temptingly sleek chest. He pushed forward and curved back, advancing and retreating so their energy fields meshed in long, sinuous kiss from chest to feet. Metal and glass barely touched.

Soundwave peered up from under his helm and turned up the music to cover whatever he purred. Starscream smiled and raised one hand, resting it on Soundwave’s throat as the communication mech lifted his chin to accept the possessive grasp. Blue fingers drew down the vulnerable wires and tubes on the sides, but Starscream’s hand slid around to the back of his neck.

The dancing mech curled about, turning like the hand on his neck were a pivot, helm bowing down under Starscream’s arm and tossing up in a saucy flip once he’d passed. His body followed in twisting curve that put his back between the Air Commander’s legs. Starscream’s thumb pet the nape of his neck, and Soundwave pushed into the intimacy. Uncoiling from the floor, he gave a snaking writhe that deliberately slid the sides of his hips up Starscream’s legs. Black hands fell from the armrests to Starscream’s legs, squeezing firmly, and the dance turned unashamedly erotic from there.

Decepticons looked everywhere but the command chair. They talked among themselves under the music, quiet and keeping their optics on their work. They didn’t watch Starscream’s hands cup Soundwave’s aft and smooth around to the front to fondle thighs now squirming in his lap. Greedy as ever, Starscream took handfuls of glossy plating and accepted them as tribute. Nobody saw Soundwave’s hands cover Starscream’s and guide them up to grope the open, empty Cassette desk in his chest, or take them down to press buttons that featured in too many mechs’ fantasies. The Decepticons were blind to the rolling grind and soft sounds, the rasping murmurs and throaty moans as Soundwave took his turn at keeping their Second-in-Command satisfied. 

Everything got worse on Earth, but.

But.

Some things got so much better.

 

**[* * * * *]**

_[ **A/N:** My computer kind of crashed and died. This was the angry fic-writing I indulged in while reinstalling and waiting for things to run properly._

_Until the curtain rises next time, m’dears.]_


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